


Vacay

by aMassiveDisappointment (BadOldWest)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lifeguards, Eventual Smut, F/M, Lifeguards, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, They're all hot can we just let me have this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-19 07:01:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11892495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadOldWest/pseuds/aMassiveDisappointment
Summary: Finn and Rey get a job as lifeguards at the local pool for their last summer before college. Rey tries to set Finn up with the hot aspiring writer who crashes on the patio furniture when his shift is over, Finn is resistant for a variety of reasons. Poe has some solutions.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just. Let. Me. Have. Fun.

Rey,  _ who was not supposed to be in the pool, even if it was her break, _ swam discreetly in front of the lifeguard chair. At least, she found it discreet, but the use of a giant inflatable pool toy in the shape of a spaceship covering her from view of the sidewalk was actually pretty conspicuous. 

“The love of your life just signed in,” her voice floated to his ears from an unmoving mouth. Finn still cringed. 

Before he could respond, she dove her head back under the water, her ass arching out above the surface before she went down, pointedly, as if telling him where he could stick his excuses now.

He risked a glance at where Jess was in the plastic lawn chair, the half-hearted towel she draped over it doing nothing to add comfort to where she sat at the gate, checking pool passes and collecting entrance fees. The tousled-curled guy in a perfectly fitted Hawaiian shirt was in fact signing in at her folding table, a worn paperback in his hand. 

Finn tried not to feel like his high perch at the lifeguard chair was a vulnerable position, because it was a powerful one; but it didn’t feel good being so high up when he was up there alone. 

Luckily, a dripping Rey stood on the ladder beside him, drops of cold water flicking his skin as she shook herself off in a way not unlike a dog. 

“Stop distracting me while I’m working,” Finn hissed, laser-focusing in the contents of the pool; it held two local grandmas and a set of three gossiping thirteen-year-olds who only had their legs dangling in. No one went to the pool when the beach was three miles away, but it was the last summer for bullshit summer jobs, and he jumped at the opportunity to work with Rey before they split ways at the end of the summer. 

Rey rolled her eyes, resting her head on his shoulder for a moment before lifting it back up, the sun absorbed in his skin was comforting but it was too hot to appreciate for long.

She was touchier than usual, pushier about her schemes to make Finn get all the love she thought he deserved, because the weighted guillotine blade of August was pulling at its rope over their heads. 

She pressed a cold coke to Finn’s leg, and he flinched. She chuckled as he twisted off the cap and took an annoyed sip.

The Guy With Great Hair waved in greeting, he usually came to the poolside to read because he was the night manager of the motel across the street, and was just getting off his shift in mid-morning. He napped by the pool, read a little bit between zzzs, and swam laps in the afternoon. Rey seemed to observe that it didn’t look like he actually lived anywhere, Finn found it slightly romantic. He was writing a book. About war. It sounded masculine. 

“Talk to him,” Rey mouthed furiously, chewing the end of her plastic whistle. There was a slam of car horns. Another reason to go to the beach instead of this pool; the fence offered no privacy from the sidewalk, or the motel across the street, so the road-rage surrounding them swirled loud and ominous like a tornado. “Your break is coming up. Take it early, my treat.”

With trembling hands, Finn sank down. He glared up at Rey, who shrugged. “Last chance for some summer fun,” she said with a dry smile and sparkling eyes behind her sunglasses. She climbed easily up the lifeguard perch. She leaned back, pretending she wasn’t watching. The whistle clicked between her teeth.

Finn cradled his soda in his hand, lowering himself to the employee picnic table. Rey’d given him his break a full twenty minutes early; he owed her one. He was probably actually obligated to talk to the Guy With Great Hair because of her generosity. Shit. 

He was, conspicuously, stretched out at one of the closest lawn chairs, maybe three over from where whoever was off-duty gathered to drink soda and try not to melt.

“What book is it today?” Finn blurted out. 

Great Hair Guy lifted his head from the vinyl cradle of the lawn chair. 

He glanced down at the paperback splayed open on his chest. 

“Oh,” he cracked a smile. “It’s uh…a Jessica Mitford bio. Sort of required reading for this writing class I’m in.”

“Really? Where are you taking classes?”

He threaded his fingers under the collar of his hipster-y Hawaiian shirt sheepishly in response, scratching at his chest. “Kind of this local legend recluse author. I walk her dog twice a day, she makes me tea and reads what I’ve got so far. She has a thing for feisty ladies, and she thinks it’s part of my education.”

Finn glanced down at the concrete. 

“So you’re a writer?”

He shrugged. “I’m a night manager, dog-walker, occasional bartender who happens to write, at this point.”

Finn laughed, unable to lift his eyes until he blurted out;

“Who’s Jessica Mitford?” 

Hair Guy cracked a smile, “This daughter of a big British aristocratic family. One of six, I think. She was a communist as a child, her sister a nazi, one wanted to be a duchess, one was an acclaimed novelist… they were just a crazy family. Jessica became this muckraking reporter when she was an adult. The woman who assigned it, she likes _characters._ I have got to hand it to her, she knows how to pick them.”

Finn didn’t have much to say about that story; antiquated fascists didn’t seem as wildly quirky to him like they did to other readers, but maybe this author made a better case for the rest of the sisters. 

“Of course,” Hair Guy lowered his voice before he continued, “It’s another one of those quirky white families that everyone is flippant about the controversial stuff. I’m liking Jessica, but you can’t come from that background if you’re not a wealthy British aristocrat, and most people aren’t, so the charm is lost on me. I’m Poe, by the way.”

“Finn.”

Finn smiled, having something easier to offer than an opinion on a clusterfuck of crazy aristocrats. And grateful that Poe had just won him back over. Rey didn’t really care what the person she dated was reading, but Finn thought there was merit into other people’s perception; and taste in literature said a great deal about that. It made the last few years of high school difficult, he still achieved incredibly high marks, but he had to bite his tongue during more than one Great American Novel that was a little outdated in who it viewed as American.

Poe smiled back. 

“So, are you here for the summer, or…?”

Finn shook his head, then nodded. “Well, yeah. I leave for college in two weeks, but I’ve been here...always. I guess that means I’m here for the summer.”

Poe nodded, staring out at the Star Alliance across the street. The place was mighty, but seemed to attract trouble. Finn could tell he was keeping an eye on it, even off-duty. 

“I’m probably cutting into your break,” Poe said smoothly, lying back on the pool chair. Finn startled, slipping back to the picnic table in the shade. 

“I’m probably cutting into your nap.”

He made the mistake of glancing up at Rey, who was miming something that had to be phallic in her pumping fist. He shook his head, sucking down some now-warm coke. It did nothing to settle his stomach. 

 

“You were slaying the game.”

“No one says that.”

Rey turned her head to look up at him, squinting in the sun. The last hour of the afternoon was always killer. The sun was so bad most people were whited-out with sunscreen, the pool water swirling in that oily way it did when sunblock oversaturated the chlorine. The only ones still in the water were a young mother and her baby, and it didn’t look like she was going to lose her grip or leave the shallow end anytime soon. Finn was still keeping a close eye on it.

Rey tanned at the foot of his chair, which was not the safest of measures, but as Han introduced them to the rules of the working there, he listed them off in his usual barking tone, but ended orientation with “And if you don’t listen to a fucking thing I say, listen to this; _ just don’t get caught fucking up, and don’t let anyone die, then do whatever the hell you want.” _

It had to be eighteen shades of illegal, but he and Rey got to work together, so it was worth it. 

“He wants it. You know. The-”

Finn leaned back in the lifeguard chair. “Don’t say it.”

“You deserve one last fling before school starts. Before you leave us.”

Rey smiled, but Finn could never tell if she was really kidding when she said those things. The weight of September was growing heavy between them. 

He stared down at her thin, dark shoulders, where the sun hit her first from the start of the day to the end of it. The paler parts weren’t as heavily freckled. 

It felt like a violation, examining these parts of his best friend while she was blatantly trying to set him with someone else who he did, admittedly, have a crush on. 

But it was Rey’s nature. She managed everyone into these sweet little pairings, almost compulsively, and didn’t accept much else for herself. She’d picked out his last three prom dates. He only listened to her twice; senior year, he insisted they go as friends and have a better time than the previous two. He ended up being right, but she’d never admit it, and that actually spawned an argument that applying for the lifeguarding job together wordlessly repaired. 

It was how they were. Constant closeness, but the minute they got too close, they’d snap apart like opposing magnets. 

“I’m not leaving you,” he said, eyes flickering from her to the pool. She snorted. It wasn’t the time or the place to try and get into this again. She was never going to have 100% of his attention while he was on duty, he was too good a person to let that slip. “I’ll be back.”

She elected to ignore that promise, as many tactful people do with things they don’t agree with.

“Hey,” she reached up and grabbed his foot, rolling onto her back as she batted at him like a cat, “with me as the wingman, no one strikes out. Ever.”

He stared at the dense blue of the water, and not the dense red of how well her one-piece fit over her curves. “What does that even mean? Why are you so eager to be my wingman all the time?”

Rey grinned up at him. “Because, in the end, the wingman always wins. Sure, they never seal the deal, but they are regarded with gratitude and karmically score more points than a pair of lovers do.”

“That’s what it’s for? Karma?”

She shrugged. She lay back, confident in her statement. Rey always felt best in the sun. She liked to lie out and  _ bake _ . 

“It’s for friendship,” she declared.

Finn tried not to feel disappointed that her obsession with his sex life wasn’t even a little bit of projection. Maybe that would have at least made him feel less guilty about his staring. 

 

Closing time was a cool, hushed time. More blue than orange for the first time in hours. Shadows filled the pool instead of warm bodies. People left with chattering teeth and skin holding on to a harsh heat.

Han designed the schedule so whoever was newest had to close up, that would be Jess, but Finn put an end to that practice because it was so much faster and easier to do it all together. Divvying up checking the filters, tossing things in the lost-and-found, and lowering umbrellas went from an extra hour on the clock to fifteen minutes. Han was informed of the efficiency of this practice, but like how he took his coffee every morning with a pack of sugar and a shot of bourbon, this went otherwise unobserved. 

Another thing to love about Finn. 

Another to miss. 

Poe was still asleep, so Finn told the girls to let him stay there until they were done. 

Rey flicked water at his bare feet once she had finished her usual tasks, and he startled awake. He smiled down at the lifeguard seated yoga-crossed at the ground before his feet. 

“I wasn’t dead. Thank you for checking.”

She motioned to the white lettering on her suit, a dramatic block cross. “It’s my job.”

Poe shrugged on his shirt, hastily buttoning like chlorine-coated skin usually called for. Inches of lower belly were exposed, a dark swirl of hair trailing from his navel. You stick someone in a neon blue pool for a few minutes and it was like it coated their skin like teflon, where partial nudity suddenly meant nothing anymore. A fragrant, invisible armor. 

Finn approached, holding the red emergency flotation device like a shield in front of him. Rey squinted, he was backlit by sunset, and he looked like a knight with humility. Rey was raised alongside Finn, even from different backgrounds, the older they got, the more he seemed to embody what she thought was a good hero as a child. 

Poe smiled at him, his face warmed by the sun, but his squint was more of a smolder. Rey knew she must look like a little girl, sitting on the wet ground at the feet of a man. 

“Heading home?” he asked Finn, who nodded. 

“You want to walk together?” His brow sort of twitched, a strange tell of nervousness on an otherwise charming expression. Finn gripped the shoulder of his bag. 

He felt guilty again, because he usually wheeled his bike along with Rey as she walked home, or risked standing on the pedals while she took the seat. They've only tipped twice.

Rey wheeled past him on _his_ bike. 

“I’m stealing your bike. It’s too far to walk to the Snack Shack, and I want fried clams. I’ll drop it off later.”

He shot her a grateful smile.

"She steals my bike now, the next thing it's going to be is my heart."

She pointedly flipped him off, not turning around. The sun caught her hair in the half-dried, twisty bun on the back of her head, and he felt a pull in his chest for little things he would miss. 

"I guess I'm walking with you," Finn said quietly. 

"She made sure of that."

Poe laughed softly as he watched Rey bike away. His face seemed to assess her too, not that Finn could blame him, Rey was gorgeous. No best friend was dense enough not to notice, even objectively. 

Finn finally looked at Poe in the eyes, something before had been stopping him.

"She's my wingman." Finn admitted, trying to jump where Rey pushed. He'd taken enough risks when it came to his college choices for the fall, he had hoped for an end to summer in relative peace, save Rey's mournful approach to his departure and his adopted mother's barely-masked disapproval that he chose Howard over Princeton. 

He'd wanted a safe summer, he'd wanted a familiar one. 

But new things sometimes appeared. Maybe he could try one new path before he departed on his biggest one yet. 

Rey tried not to let her encouraging smile sink from her face as she pedaled away. 


	2. Chapter 2

The palm trees in this neighborhood sagged towards the ground. Palm trees on TV were always 100 feet tall, skinny and pristine. When they grew from silty soil in a shit part of town, they looked how they should look for their surrounding, cigarette butts around the roots, bike locks woven around the thick trunk: the bike lifted off the ground because the fit of the cable was so tight.

This was what Finn was escaping in two weeks, guiltily.

Like clockwork, probably because of his younger age, the subject of the future was raised. He sighed, glancing sidelong at Poe.  

“So that’s the thing…”

He let his head fall back as he walked. Poe’s gait was slow and lazy, so it was good for talking along to.

He told the whole story. Adopted mom Phasma. Shock of white-blonde hair. A Lawyer, in that kind of punchy way that people shouted for in movies: _I need to speak to_ **_My Lawyer._ ** Cut to a male actor with three Academy Award nominations. That was what some people pictured, but in the seconds before the cut, Finn could only picture Phasma.

She wanted what was best for Finn, so when an Ivy League accepted him, that was the obvious choice.

But he wanted to go to Howard.

At a traditionally prestigious school, he would have to push himself to conform to the kind of person who looked good on paper constantly. He’d have to cull anything that disobeyed that image. Disobeyed Phasma's great plan for him. The one he conformed to with no say in it, because it was a loaded dynamic; she rescued him from...whatever his life would have been, and he'd had to be grateful for not being stuck in the alternative.

Finn had already been doing that his entire life.

He would have to already have an expert explanation for what he was.

He wanted to go to Howard to _figure that out first._

He loved Phasma, her strength was admirable to him, but he wasn’t going to spend four years, or the rest of his life, trying to be like her. He could appreciate her strength, but that didn’t mean he had to act the exact same way.

Poe listened, there was a confidence in his listening, and intentness that Finn grew comfortable with.

“Where did you choose?”

In the end, it was only his decision and he made it. He was going to Howard, and he was going to have to live with that and Phasma’s well-meaning disapproval, imposing as it was.

His only real guilt was leaving Rey behind. She was really on her own, had been since an age that is wasn’t fair or legal to ask of a child.

Poe let out a sympathetic, meditative noise. “I’m glad you’re making your own choices. Even if it’s just figuring yourself out.”

There was a simple sentiment to it, and Finn felt relieved. The decision was already made, so it wasn’t exactly like Poe was offering counsel...just...support.

Rey of course, had been nothing but supportive of his choice to move away from Phasma. Even if it obviously hurt her. 

“I was a good kid. A good son,” Finn nods. “I’m just not sure if that’s more reflective of whose kid I was, or the expectations set on me. I want to set my own.”

“That’s what we’re all doing. Do you think I want to be the night manager of The Star Alliance for the rest of my life?” Poe shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m writing while I work there. I have this mentor...kind of crazy old novelist who lives in my neighborhood, adopted me, invites me over for grueling critiques of my work...but I’m learning. Some nights I’m learning how to face off with the creepiest guy in a mask trying to protect someone who booked a room in the Star in order to hide from him. Some nights I’m learning that I’m derivative while my hero throws first edition hardcovers of her own damn book at my head. It’s a process. We’re all just figuring things out.”

There was a blast of music from a car radio a block over, the echo and hum of the bass remained in Finn’s ears even after it sped away. Sometimes, with the right stereo, he had the beat of a song he’d heard ten seconds of stuck in his head the whole way home.

“You sleep outside at the pool,” Finn observed. “There’s plenty of empty beds in the Star.”

Poe nodded, smiling to himself.

“I like the sun. I like that the white noise is public and usually friendlier. You overhear stuff in a motel that is less so. And when there’s a lifeguard around…” he shrugs. “I don’t know. I feel safe. Even when I’m not in the water. That there’s an eye on things. Who even knows how to be an adult anymore, you know? I feel like our generation is just taking shifts for each other.”

Finn nodded. They continued in comfortable silence. Once Finn opened the gate to the front yard, bouncing up the step to the door, he glanced over his shoulder.

He still didn’t like that the neighbors could assume…

But two guy friends who weren’t up to anything funny wouldn’t check over their shoulders before entering the house.

It was pretty clear what this was. Finn didn’t have to open up to Poe, and Poe didn’t have to do the same, especially with the obvious expiration date. But instead, it just made it nicer as he slipped Poe a beer as they sat in the more private backyard (higher fence, more trees). The lawn chairs creaked when they leaned forward to kiss. Poe’s tongue lapped gently under his upper lip, then molded his mouth against Finn’s. It was really relaxed. Both of them had sun-warmed skin that was shivery from the dying light. He’d had hook-ups that felt like everything was counting down to zero like a bomb. Poe was calm. Figuring him out.

 

That night, Rey crawled into his bed. He sort of expected it.

“Came to return the bike.”

But cat-like, curling at his side, it was clear she was there to crash. Which made sense, it was almost eleven. He wouldn’t let her go home alone this late even if she wanted to leave.

Poe had just left. Phasma wasn’t home, she’d texted she’d be in the office all night.

Most nights were like that since he’d announced his choice to go to Howard.

He was showered clean, but a little fragile, like sex always made him feel.

Phasma didn't know.

Rey _always_ knew, but never made him talk about it until he told her in tears. 

The only trouble she had grasping it was the bisexuality, because if he was attracted to girls too, the obvious choice would be...

And she was, in a lot of ways. 

She rested her head on his shoulder, hair crusted with chlorine. He rubbed her sun-warmed back.

"How were the clam strips?" he asked sleepily. 

She shrugged. "Delicious. Got catcalled on the way back. Didn't want to have to go all the way home after that, so I came here."

"What did they say?"

She rolled her eyes, snuggling closer. "Does it matter to you, when someone says something offensive? Or is it the fact it's allowed to be said, and no one does anything."

He would have, and she knew that. She'd do the same for him. That's how it always was.

He didn't have to say it, but she smiled sadly because she knew. 

She shook her head.

“How was it?”

Finn stared up at his ceiling. Rey lifted her head to check his expression. He cracked a smile.

“What happened?” she breathed, the warmth of it brushing his cheek.

He groaned. “He blew me.”

Rey grinned. “Did you?”

Finn rolled his eyes. “Yes. It was nice. I like him.”

It was more than nice, how Poe noticed his anxiety about touch, fear that Phasma would come back or the neighbors would find out or everything would spontaneously combust. Poe was really gentle, really calm. This slow, easy assurance, and then his lips were around Finn's cock and Finn was arching out of his lawn chair and when he tilted his head back the sun was setting over the edge of the fence. It was casual, but that didn't mean it didn't have to matter.

“You’re leaving soon,” she reminded him with a shit-eating grin. There was a strange logic to it. She could talk about it, but no one else could.

It had made the past month really hard.

He slid his arm around her. “I know.”

“So what are you going to do?”

He sighed, and her head rose and fell with his breath.

“I have to come back to see you. So I guess you’ll just have to share my visits.”

She elbowed him, glaring at his grave expression, but they both laughed.

“Never,” she declared. She kissed his shoulder. “What else happened?”

“You’re awfully curious.”

“He’s hot,” she stared at the ceiling, her scrunchy, pensive look on her face.

“Showered together. Made out. It was all pretty lackadaisical.”

She laughed again, but then she shivered. Sliding a hand down her back, he noticed she was still in her swimsuit.

“Rey. Come on. You didn’t get changed.”

She sat up, shimmying. “I’m _still_ wearing my _bathing suit.”_

The red of it stretched over her chest, the dip in her tan lines creating a white curve in her cleavage, and he looked away. 

They had a swim instructor growing up that they would run into at the snack shack after classes. _Still in her bathing suit._ She would do that same thing, defiant, still pool-ready, even though the kids were ushered to the locker rooms to change by Phasma, were both insanely jealous of her rebellion.

Sometimes being an adult seemed like you would never have to change out of your suit at the end of the day. Would never have to leave the pool at closing. Now they couldn't; they had to clean it.

He sat up and went to his dresser, grabbing a pair of sweatpants and a soft shirt.

“Don’t sleep in what you’re wearing to work tomorrow.”

“Chlorine sanitizes,” she drawled, but she was already standing and unsnapping her high-waisted shorts.

He didn’t know why, maybe it was the loose-boned way he felt after Poe’s mouth on him, or all the kissing, but he threaded his thumbs in Rey’s belt loops and eased the shorts down past her hips. She glanced up at him, her brow raised.

“Thanks,” she said softly, and suddenly, after hooking up with the guy he had been chasing all summer, he was kissing his best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know where this is going....#polyamoryfuckyeah

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not trashing the Mitford Sisters. I just needed a semi-problematic text that Leia would still go for, and Unity Mitfords' Nazi Thing was a little...more like an antiquated thing three years ago than it is this year, so I figured we'd chalk it up to a generation gap so I picked a problematic text that I still like. Also the director of my schools creative writing program wrote Irrepressible, so, shout out. 
> 
> Finn needs to be the protagonist more often. I love his character. So I was looking for Finn's Caleb-Gallo-Esque-End-Of-Summer-fling where it's really just about our generation just figuring stuff out. (The Caleb Gallo stuff is loose I just like that as my thesis: We're all figuring shit out). 
> 
> Now enjoy this heartwarming tale of Public Pool Threesomes.


End file.
